This topic post is more on target with long ago forum name "fun/fluff" section. :-)
The thread on DU web site is reaching nearly 300 posts/comments with blame either being on the parents of the child or on the community center in not securing the artwork properly, or on the insurance company choosing to not cover the loss of the artwork and some blame on the artist/sculpture himself because of over-estimating the value of his perceived artwork.
As for pointing finger of ratio of blame of who is at fault: the community center for not securing the artwork (blame is 25%) while the dumb-ass parents deserve 75% of the blame.
Watch the video. The mother isn't blaming herself, but the community center. No..... "Lady" (questionable parenting skills) "You are at fault. You should be lucky the art piece didn't hurt your free range kid who can't control himself."
She should get a $50,000 fine for being both negligent and stupid to boot.
-- 5 year old's touch sends on-loan sculpture crashing to floor. Kansas City bills parents 132K
Wrangling 5-year-olds can be challenging. Failing to do so can apparently be expensive. Or so learned a Kansas couple, who say they may be on the hook for a $132,000 sculpture their young son knocked over. ABC News reports that while at the Tomahawk Ridge Community Center in Overland Park for a May 19 wedding reception, the 5-year-old was caught reaching toward the sculpture by surveillance cameras; "Aphrodite di Kansas City" toppled over and fell. Then the other shoe dropped, in the form of an insurance claim for $132,000—the piece's list price—from the company that insures the city. Sculptor Bill Lyons says he spent roughly 2 years creating the glass piece and that his inspection of it revealed damage to the head and arms. It is "beyond my capabilities and desires to rebuild it," Lyons says.
"You’re responsible for the supervision of a minor child ... your failure to monitor could be considered negligent," the letter from the insurance company read in part. Mom Sarah Goodman counters that the whole scenario was dangerous, and not because of her child. "He didn’t maliciously break that. It fell on him. It was not secure, it was not safe—at all." As for what he was doing, she tells the Kansas City Star "he probably hugged it ... because he’s a loving, sweet nice boy who just graduated from preschool." Overland Park says the piece was on loan and it was obligated to file an insurance claim, and the insurance company was subsequently obligated to contact the family. They say they're hopeful their homeowner's insurance policy will cover the situation, reports KSHB. (This woman says she didn't ruin an $89,000 artwork but rather increased its value.) --
How do you know it's top-heavy? Looks like it could have a fairly heavy base to me ...
All that thick mosaic is fairly heavy + requires a lot of epoxy which has weight. A lot depends on how thick the mosaic is, how thick the glass is, how thick that metal frame is, and what's under all that mosaic. Can't know just by looking at this statue.
I agree the pedestal looks a bit inadequate and the wisdom of having a supposedly near $100K in value statue in an area used for parties without it being somehow enclosed seems questionable at best.
And I suppose a kid that young knocking it over provides fairly decent evidence it wasn't bottom-heavy ENOUGH unless he totally climbed up onto the top 1/2 ;-) --
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